Book Review of "Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters" by Courtney E. Martin

In 1995, 34% of high school-aged girls in the United States saw themselves as overweight. Today, that figure is 90%. Why did it nearly triple in less than 15 years, and how can we reverse this alarming trend toward self-criticism and body insecurity?

Go to any store or online bookseller and you'll see shelves of titles on this subject. Yet like the story of the blind men describing the parts of an elephant they encounter, books about eating disorders, body issues, and perfectionism written by doctors, psychologists, nutritionists, feminists and other experts view the topic piecemeal through a circumscribed perspective framed by the author's years of experience, training, and education.

This is not what Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters offers. The title may suggest it's mainly concerned with eating disorders. But writer and filmmaker Courtney E. Martin goes beyond food obsession and physical hunger in her literate and moving examination of why so many girls and young women are at war with their external appearances and their internal lives.

Martin is not a psychotherapist or a recovering anorectic. Although she's danced on the edge of that particular volcano, she has entered adulthood relatively unscathed as compared to her peers. "I look at the driven, diverse, brilliant, courageous, and beautiful women around me , "Martin writes, "and am devastated by how many struggle with these issues. At age twenty-five, I can honestly say that the majority of the young women I know have either full-blown eating disorders or screwed-up attitudes toward food and fitness."

Through her eyes we see that where females are concerned, no age, stage, or racial group is immune to the self-hatred triggered by the relentless pressure in our culture to be perfect. From the working class and ethnically diverse college students she teaches to the uber-privileged 14-year-olds at a top private school in New York City, the author learns that dissatisfaction and self-denial are commonplace.

At the heart of Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters is a very readable and very engaging narrative that takes us through nearly every aspect of a young woman's life. Like excavating an archaeological dig, Martin sifts through mother/daughter relationships, feminism, father approval/disapproval, peer pressure, high school, sexuality, music and media, male desires, diets and makeovers, athletics, college and post-college disappointment, and spirituality to show how a hunger for acceptance and approval leads so many to starve themselves to get it.

I am not a fan of self-help books, often finding them too preachy or too chirpy in their rah-rah 'you can do it!' tone. You won't find any of that in Martin's work. Perfect Girls is less about self-help and more about self-awareness and self-introspection. It's a big-picture look at the circumstances that have come together to create a perfect storm of impossible perfection that so many girls and young women are caught in today.

Supported by original research and interviews with experts and professionals, Martin's book is made more powerful and credible because of her youth and the authenticity of her voice. Whether you're thirteen or thirty-three (or older), Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters will help you understand what we can begin to do to reclaim our sense of self and move toward wholeness instead of perfection.

Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body
by Courtney E. Martin
Paperback, 400pp. ISBN: 978-0425223369
Berkley Trade September 2008